Western appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1885-18??, 1887-07-23
COUNTRY LIFE AND WORK,
MOTHERS COME.

Where the red-stemmed brier grew,
In city of the dead,
That idly wandered through,
By capricious fancy led,
Mid group of graves found
Something meier to be forgot,
Ger the largest, greenest mound
This inscription, "Children p ssWhatp'
"Mother's comel'
And asked myself with tears,
Had they slept this little throng IL
All the lonely, silent years
Had the children waited long2
Babes, were you afraid or cold7
Did the years seem long or not
Till the birds and flowers told
Of her cominga "Childrenw ssWheta"
"Mother's comet"
MRS. L. NJ RAYNE.
REMEMBRANCE.
do remind me how. when, by bier,
Hooked my last on an unanswering face
Serenely waiting for the graves embrace
One who would fain have comforted said !:
"Dear,
This is the worst. Lies bitterest drop is
here.
Impartial fate has done you this one grace,
That till you go to your appointed place,
Or soon or late, there's no more to fear'
1t was not true my soul it was not true
Thou art not lost while remember thee,
What If the years, slow creeping like the
blue
Resistless tide, should blot that face from
Not to remember would be worse than
death.
julia G. DoRR, in Scribner
RETURNING STRAW TO THE LAND.
There are various opinions among
farmers as to the value of straw when
returned to the land as an aid to the
production of future crops. We have
never held the opinion that straw poss-
esses any intrinsic properties ofits own
as manure, or to justify the expendi-
ture of any great amount of time or
labor upon it looking to that end with
out its being first either passed through
our domestic animals, and thus mixed
with their other and richer food, or else
used in our barnyards and stables as an
absorbent to suck up and hold the liquid
portions of the manure and thus insure
their better distribution upon the land.
The plan of burning the straw after
spreading it upon the land is notattend-
ed with any good results except that it
insures destruction of weed seeds-the
value of the ashes left by its incinera-
ton being very insignificant at best.
The question not frequently comes up
between the owners and renters of land
as to the removal of the straw from the
premises-some of the former being
very persistent in their objections there
to. If it is to be made use of as above
intimated, then we should say by all
means it should be retained upon the
land. But if it is to be merely spread
upon the land without being passed
through the animals or used as absorb
ent, then we can see no injury done to
future crops by its removal.
That celebrated agriculturist and ex-
perimenter, j. B. Lawes, of England,
made the following experiment some
years ago, with the view of testing the
intrinsic value of straw as manure:
After having raised wheat on the same
land for twenty-four years in success
lOn-removing the straw as well as
grain therefrom-he tried the expert
ment of returning to a portion of the
land the straw made thereon the pre-
Vious year. Accordingly he chose ten
plots of land of equal size, all of which
had received the same manuring year
after year for the twenty-four years.
TO five of these plots he returned the
straw annually after it had been re-
moved, while to the other five plots
the straw was not returned. To the first
five plots the straw, as returned, was
merely run through a cutting box,
spread evenly upon the land, plowed
under and sowed in wheat; the other
five plots, as said before having no
straw returned to them. The results
showed but a trifle difference in the
yield, if anything, it being in favor of
the plots to which no straw had been
returned. The experiment was contin-
ued for several years, with no precepti-
BILE difference in the yield, the plots all
being MANFRED as near as possible
alike.
HOW MEN DRINK FARMS.
The Plowman, in a characteristic
way, tells how men ''drink FARMS"
My homeless friend with the chroma-
tic nose, while you are stirring up the
sugar in that ten-cent glass of gin, let
me give you fact to wash it down
with. You say you have for years
longed for the free independent life of
a farmer, but have never been able to
get money together to buy farm.
But that is just where you are mistaken.
For several years you have been drink
ing a good improved farm at the rate
of one hundred square feet gulp. If
you doubt this statement figure it out
for yourself An acre of land contains
forty three thousand five hundred and
sixty square feet. Estimating, for
convenience sake, the lands at 1886
per acre, you will see that brings the
land to just one mill per square foot,
one cent for ten square feet. Now
pour the fiery dose and imagine you are
swallowing a strawberry patch. Call
in five of your friends and have them
hell you gulp down that five hundred
foot garden. Get on prolonged spree
some day and see how long it requires
to swallow a pasture large enough to
feed COW. Put down that glass of
gin; there's dirt in it-one hundred
square feet of good, rich dirt, worth
1886 per acre.
MISSED SEEDING OF GRAIN.
1t often happens that strips of land
through grain fields are accidently left
unseeded, and the mistake is not dis
covered until the grain is up. In most
cases little is gained by trying to seed
after the main crop is above the sur
face, especially with Grain. which ma